No doubt the blow was a crushing one to Beethoven. On the fateful Sunday, or the day after, he met the wife of Stephan von Breuning and told her the tragical story. “And is he dead?” she inquired in tender solicitude. “No,” was the answer, “it was a glancing shot; he lives and there is hope that he will be saved. But the disgrace which he has brought upon me! And I loved him so!” The occurrence was soon noised about the city and much sympathy was expressed for Beethoven, as Holz took occasion to inform him. Schindler says that the blow bowed the proud figure of the composer and he soon looked like a man of seventy. To add to his sufferings he was compelled to learn that many persons placed part of the blame for the rash act upon him. Karl was placed in the “men’s three-florin” ward, which was under the care of a Dr. Gassner. He had an assistant named Dr. Seng, who told Gerhard von Breuning long after, how Beethoven had come to visit his nephew and described him as a “dissolute fellow” and “rascal,” one “who did not deserve to be visited” and had been “spoiled by kindness.” [Sidenote: REASONS FOR THE DEED] Strenuous efforts were made by Beethoven through Holz and others to discover what direct cause had led the misguided young man to attempt to end his life. The inquiries made of him at the hospital during the weeks spent there brought scarcely more information from his lips than the first question asked by his mother. Schindler seems to have been persuaded that it was his failure to pass his examinations at the Polytechnic Institute; but this theory is not tenable. Aside from the fact that he had time till September 3 to make up his neglected studies, he never himself advanced this as an excuse or explanation, but explicitly denied it. In the hospital he told Holz that it would have been easy for him to make himself fit to pass, but that, having made up his mind to do away with himself long before, he had not thought it worth while to continue his studies. “He said that he was tired of life,” Holz reports to Beethoven, “because he saw in it something different from what you wisely and righteously could approve.” He also phrased it thus: “Weariness of imprisonment.” To the examining police magistrate Karl said that his reason for shooting himself was that Beethoven “tormented him too much,” and also “I grew worse because my uncle wanted me to be better.” To Beethoven’s question if Karl had railed against him, Schlemmer replied: “He did not rail, but he complained that he always had trouble.” Holz’s explanation many years after to Otto Jahn was that Beethoven was “rigorous to excess in his treatment and would not allow him the slightest extravagance.” The chief cause, in greatest probability, was that he had hopelessly involved himself in debts by a dissolute life. Schindler told Beethoven that he not only played billiards but played with low persons, coachmen and the like; and that he did not always play honestly. There is a